Following on from our conversations with Randal Brasher, Baz Norman Jr and Jeremy Veysseire we’re back in the UK again and talking to Phil Marshall.

Phil Marshall – The Stats

Events: 7
Wins: 31.5*
Losses: 5.5*
Win Rate: 85.1%
Current World Woehammer Ranking: 6th
Current UK & Ireland Woehammer Ranking: 1st

*In our Woehammer stats we count all draws as 0.5 wins and losses

Phil, thank you for talking to me and firstly a massive congratulations on your Age of Sigmar (Best Overall) win! That seemed pretty wild, heading out to the US to compete in a such a prestigious competition! How did you find it?

Thanks! It was all pretty surreal to be perfectly honest with you, there wasn’t much communication that there was a way for any of us in the UK for qualifying for the US Open so it came as a massive surprise when I got the email come through. To be invited is one thing, but to be informed that Games Workshop were covering my flights and accommodation was equally unexpected. The resort that they hired out in Santa Ana Albuquerque was simply amazing, the views, the amenities were all second to none. With that being said I wasn’t there to soak in the joys of what the resort had to offer and I certainly didn’t help myself by having to play 7 games of Warhammer in 2 days! I really enjoyed the structure of the event with the 2 loss knockout system, meaning you were still in with a chance of taking out the event until you suffered your second loss. What was interesting was the rankings were done on ITC seedings, in the UK we don’t really follow the ITC so I was the lowest ranked seed in my category. This meant my game 1 I had to play against the number 1 ranked seed in my category which was Team Americas Matt Beasley. We had a great game which I ended up losing by 1VP, which meant if I was to win the event I would need to win all of my remaining games. As a result on the Saturday I was now scheduled to play 8.00am to midnight. Thankfully, I managed to get the wins required in my remaining 3 games to see me through to the Sunday and a rematch with Matt in the morning. I managed to take out the rematch winning by 7Vps. This led me to taking on the legendary Scooter Walters who was still unbeaten meaning I had to take him out twice in a row. Game 1 I managed a big win in Realmstone Cache (26-2), we then played a much more even scenario in the Nidus Paths and we had a great game of warhammer which could have closer resembled a chess game. The game ended 28-20 to me, meaning I was crowned Best Overall for 2022 which is a pretty cool achievement to do considering I didn’t start playing competitively until September last year. It was also amazing to meet all the other AoS players that were at the event that I have been following and interacting with on Twitter and was great to put names and faces and build better relationships with these people in the hobby. Finally, a massive shout out to Mike and Zach who put the event on deserve massive credit for the way the event was organised and ran. We all got some call memorabilia to remember our trip. As they said during the event, it doesn’t matter how we did, we had already won by being invited (obviously I didn’t spend 27 hours traveling not to go out there without the intent of bringing it home). They have great plans to expand this in future years so hopefully we will see more people from the UK heading over and making sure the crown remains in British hands. Fingers crossed I will manage to qualify to either retain it myself or try and take out best general.

Wow, that’s incredible! You never know, you may be doing this every year!

Seven games over two days is a tough shout. We heard from Jeremy Veysseire on his methods for maintaining focus over a gaming weekend, but what are your methods. How do you keep yourself mentally focused on what you need to do?

I am quite different to most wargamers, I don’t drink any alcohol at events (boring I know), I like to feel very fresh each day and keep myself hydrated. I always tend to find, I like to get to the event nice and early, being the first player to the table and get it all set up. I don’t like the feeling of being rushed so I do all these little things to alleviate that prior to the game. The next things is whilst playing is that I try to only focus on the elements of the game that I can control, you have to take the dice out of it. By focusing on you and your game, it will allow you to think a few turns ahead and have a game plan for when priority either goes your way or against you. I think the most important thing I have learnt which I believe to be the biggest by-product of my consistency on the table top is the ability to know your opponents army as well as your own or at least have a very clear understanding of how that army likes to play and what they need to do to win, I have been very fortunate to play at a lot of top tables over the last 15 months and learnt a lot about a lot of armies from top tier players. This all helps with the pre game focus for me, it helps give me a clear mind set and plan of action that I need to execute.

There’s a rumour among the Woehammer team that you’re an accountant? Do you use your spreadsheet skills and organisation from this in Age of Sigmar, and how do you approach list building?

Haha yes, the rumours are true. If you don’t find me at a Warhammer table you will most likely find me in excel. This season I took the time to make myself a tracker for age of sigmar, I played a lot of games last year and wish I had kept a record of how many. With that being said, I have managed to play 134 games this year, with 120 wins, 12 losses and 2 draws. Whilst its nice to be able to breakdown what I have played against and the scenarios I have played, it doesn’t really offer much benefit from a singles point of view as there is so much variety at a singles event from potential scenarios and match ups. However, for teams Warhammer it enables me to provide an informed opinion based on personal statistics when completing the matrix for match ups and scenarios. For example I know based on playing realmstone cache 9 times this year, with 5 of those at events I have a 100% win rate in this scenario with an average differential of 20VPs with my Slaves to Darkness. On the flip side of this, I know based on my statistics that I have a 0% win rate against Sylvaneth in Close to the Chest and Silksteel nests, this allows us to know that these scenarios aren’t great for me, even if I believe the list to be beatable as they can win by just playing the primary better than I can. I love pivot tables I so use these and pivot graphs to slice and dice my data in a far more readable format, otherwise its just a sheet of data. There are some things I want to add to this next year, including a small synopsis of what the bulk of the list was, any key take aways from the game (things I thought were strong in opponents army, where I won the game and where I lost the game).

I also use excel in my list building to work out damage out put against units with varying saves and probabilities of getting plays off etc. With this information it allows me to build lists that I deem to be strong and then test them on the table top to make sure that they suit the way I play and that I feel the output is mirrored to what the numbers tell me.

So using spreadsheets and analysing the damage outputs, is this the main way you construct your lists?

Yeah, I essentially use it after I have worked out what models I want to use and then work out the ROI essentially. Then there are other factors such as movement etc that need to factored in afterwards. I dont tend to use models that I dont like, as an example, I never used marauders despite actaully making the list better, with an 83% chance of casting mask of darkness with master of magic and a 99% liklihood of sucessfully charging gave the list a much bigger threat turn 1. However, despite the numbers stating this unit was better for the way in which I like to play, I refused to paint the models as I didnt like them and I also felt that Varanguard benefited my playstyle more than the maraduers.

That’s awesome, I suspect you and I could talk spreadsheets for hours, so probably best to move on haha.

A lot of other players have spoken to have mentioned how practice is a key factor to success. Has there been a certain point after so many games where you thought ‘I’ve got this sorted now and I feel pretty confident’?

Obviously the best way to learn the minutia of the way in which you and your army like to play is by getting a lot of reps in with it and that’s the thing i would most likely put down to my success on the tabletop over the last 12 months. I got to the point probably after 3/4 months of playing Archaon religiously that I didn’t feel I need to practice with him anymore at club etc. I played an obscene amount of games and tournaments with him and was extremely consistent with the way in which I deployed, counter deployed and the plays I had against both good and bad match ups. This then allowed me to play with other armies during the week and learn how they like to be played which ultimately gave me a much better understanding when playing against them at events. Despite playing lots of varying armies, I was still taking Archaon to events and being very consistent with my results with him.

I feel that despite not having played with Archaon since LGT, I could pick up my list, go to an event tomorrow and would feel I could play it to a level where I have a chance of taking out the event.

Looking forward to the end of the year and new year, what are your plans AoS wise? Will you be sticking with the Slaves for now or do you fancy playing any other factions?

I’ve got a very busy year planned already to be honest with you! Starting off with going to LVO in January which I’m super excited for and can’t wait to meet all the Americans, Canadians and other nationalities of people I interact with on Twitter a lot. After that I have two tournaments a month in the build up to worlds which im buzzing to be representing England for.

The plan is to play as much slaves to darkness as possible. It’s my happy place, where I call home in this wonderful world. I have lots of lists that I’m wanting to get on the table top from both a teams and singles perspective. There are so many options in the new book which I think will keep playing with the fresh and exciting! My mates may not think so when I continuously run my next idea of filth into them for testing.

With all this being said, I have little interest in playing the old book now, so for a lot of events I need the new book to come out and a FAQ for the book to be legal for competitive play. If events don’t allow the new book I think I might have some fun and play some FEC gristlegore or maybe 11 dragons.

Our own Randal Brasher states the other day that he though all the top 3 lists at the Leicester GT would get beaten 10 times put of 10 by the Ogor 4x Ironblaster list.

Have you had to face them yet, and if you haven’t, how would you go about beating them?

The Ogre Iron Blaster list is a great list now that will be sure to shake things up. The KOTET list I ran at Leicester I would back to beat it to be honest, but I would need to make 1 change and go into a 2 drop. Would still look to give turn 1 away, hide my key pieces with terrain from the long range shooting of the ironblasters. I am then looking to save stake 1 unit and get all the rerolls up. Depending on mission this would either be the general if I can realistically get into grots turn 1 or if I am relying on teleporting it will be my other unit. Once there and the very real threat of VG in their deployement, turn priority can go 1 of 2 ways – I would look to give away as I know with plus 4 to save re-rolling 1s the chances of taking any damage is minimal, not likely to kill a single varanguard. If I have the turn, with finest hour, warshrine potential buff I belive the maths states that being on a 3+ re-rolling 1s against 40 shots at rend 2 damage 2 and the other option of 8 shots at rend 3 damage d3+3 I am looking at taking 10 damage, so 9 with ward from warshrine. Which kills 1 varanguard. Most Blasters tend to be lobbied together and with a double fight I would expect two blasters to be gone as a minimum.

With all this being said, its a much different story for the new slaves to darkness due to the save stacking. However, there are some tricks if shooting really becomes the meta. We have the Tzeentch banner which gives a 4+ ward against shooting to a unit, whoch for me would be a unit of 10 knights. You still play for the double and look to outdrop. 10 Knights will clear the gnoblar screens and have decent reliability with getting into combat. with demonic speed allowing to charge 3d6 changing the lowest dice to a 4, that combined with leviatate, you could bypass the screen in its entirety and just lift a chunk of ironblasters. Be interesting to see how common the list is in the UK and its something I am wanting to play test against as much as possible.

Great stuff Phil, thank you for your time and agreeing to speak to us again. Hopefully we’ll meet at some point in the future

Following on from our conversations with Randal Brasher and Baz Norman Jr, we’re back in North America this week and talking to Jeremy Veysseire.

Jeremy has appeared in so many top three list articles over the last year I’ve lost count of his GT wins and podiums!

Jeremy Veysseire – The Stats

Events: 6
Wins: 29
Losses: 2
Win Rate: 93.5%
Current World Woehammer Ranking: 3rd
Current North America Woehammer Ranking: 2nd
Current US Woehammer Ranking: 2nd

Thank you for agreeing to the interview Jeremy! Those who follow Woehammer’s Top Three Lists are used to seeing your name at on the podium many times a year! But what we want is how did this all begin? When did you start playing Warhammer and when did you start playing competitively?

Thanks for having me on first off. and to get right into it with your question. I was 9 years old (so 28 years ago) when I got my first boxset of Warhammer miniature boxset (the Lizardmen and Brettonian one) and it was a bribe from my parents when we moved from Paris France to Palo Alto California as I did not want to leave my entire extended family and didn’t really want to move to a country that I barely understood the language. My grandfather is a collector of Napoleonic & World Wars miniatures and I hung out a lot with him watching him assemble and paint them so I guess they thought it would be a good bribe but little did they know it would dictate so much of my life going forward haha.

I started playing competitively after I graduated from University and moved to Portland Oregon, I had an income from my new job and noticed that that the Pacific Northwest that I lived in had a vibrant Warhammer tournament scene as I got back into the hobby full time after University. Of course for me those days were mostly Warhammer 40,000 as this was the days of 5th edition and it culminated in my first ever east Coast GT being Nova Open. I ended up 3rd there with Sisters of Battle at the onset of 6th edition. Eventually Frontline Gaming started their own event called Bay Area Open which then created the proto circuit now known as ITC and I was hooked. While I never won ITC for 40k, I did get close a few years running. When 8th edition dropped for 40k, I remember going to the first GT in the US with Index Harlequin and losing only to a Blood Angel army that had nothing but Flyers/Planes and thats when I saw the writing on the wall for me and 40k. And its also when the first General’s Handbook came out which gave AOS the structure it needed for me to become a full convert. I swapped to it and never looked back.

A fellow convert! Did your experience of list building and competitive play in 40k transfer over to Age of Sigmar?

To an extent, at the time the game systems were fairly different in how you would achieve a win. Most 40k players I believe look at the double turn potential in AoS as the primary different reason for that but in my experience, the games approach the win condition very differently. I started out in competitive AoS with Ironjawz and got my ass handed to me by 1.0 Tzeentch over and over and while that army at the time was just this powerhouse of just straight ability to remove your models off the table, I noticed that all my losses were always because I kept trying to feeling like I had to kill the threats that killed my army which is usually at the time a good 40k tactic but in AoS it turns out doing that meant I was always giving my opponent the ability to maximize his output versus making him have to take risky position to get into effect while retaining superior board state.

Eventually, I transitioned to 1.0 Fyreslayer which grew from my experience early and I was luckily blessed with a new tome when 2.0 dropped and it greatly rewarded that type of approach to the game. Age of Sigmar is a game that rewards board positioning more than anything, be it you are a super shooty or super melee army. If you choose to be super shooty or fighty, at the end of the day winning the game wasn’t so much about waht you could kill but where you could kill it. Had a really good year with 2.0 Fyreslayer, I think I had a 95% winning rate with them in 5 Roung GTs, went to the final at LVO against pre nerf 2.0 Slaanesh and the game was pretty close, but with that finish at LVO it assured me my first place finish in ITC and best Fyreslayers.

I do want to point out to the audience, that I do not think AoS or 40k is better than one or the other. I played both competitively for a long time and still play 40k today a bit but I personally prefer AoS (who knows now that Leagues of Votann is out, yes I am a Dwarf guy. Ungrim Ironfist is one of my favorite characters from the old world) because the game currently is one of the best its ever been. I will say that I find that the experience and skills I have learned from AoS today have translated very well into the games of 40k I do play and as the games keep moving towards a rule singularity like they are maybe one day being a great player at one also means being great at the other, who knows.

You mentioned your win rate of 95%. By my calculations you’re at 93.5% this season after 6 GT’s. That’s insane! 29 wins and just 2 losses. What’s they key around your army lists to give you such success? How do you go about constructing a tournament winning list?

Honestly, the percentage is a point of pride but also I fully admit its a bit silly. Fyreslayers in 2.0 were perfectly designed for that edition and nowadays I am more going into the hobby with a bit less severity. I think I played probably close to 300 games in and outside of tournaments with 2.0 Fyreslayers and I believe I won more coin flips than my opponents when the game came down to that in 2.0. Today, I am playing KO, Legion of Blood, NoMorathi DoK, 6 Grimwrath and Gotrek FS and taking a lot more of what I think is cool and interesting but still follows some core design philosophy with how 3.0 Winning dynamism works.

KO is just good nowadays because so many Battle Tactics in Season 2 of 3.0 reward you for killing things without always being on max primary points, Legion Of Blood is an army that can just punish aggressive armies and dictate the rules of engagement in the center of the board while still scoring BT, NoMorathi does the same but with more punch and arguably less durability/attrition play and then there is my Gotrek and Grimwrath list which is more of an army this about trying something different. Honestly, I took it for the NOVA invitational because I wanted play something that was fun and since the event was single elim and that I would be playing potentially be playing 15 games at NOVA (4 games at the invitational, potentially 8 at the GT and 3 at the RTT) and the weekend before I just had a 5 round GT so 20 games in 1 week but man did that backfire. I ended up winning the invitational with it and making it to round 6 of the GT with NoMorathi and played all 3 RTT games with NoMorathi so 18 games, I had hit Warhammer Fatigue. But back to the original topic at hand, why play that Grimwrath and Gotrek list outside of fun, it is honestly pretty good in the current format because it has a lot of diversified threats and the fight of death gives you the ability to get any value out of them and the double activations gives you trade up value plus the ability to activate at the end of the combat vs strike last means you can use that toolkit to lock up units into combats and rob them of their plan to do what they wanted with them the following turn.

I struggle with 3 games over a weekend, 20 in one week must be a huge ask. Do you have any methods for keeping your focus?

Oh god, well I have methods that I should apply more often than not ahahah. When I was younger, getting drunk day 1 and sleeping only 4 hours the night of, was no issue with focus and play but now as I get older, I notice that method is really not helping anymore. Nowadays, while I still drink (Scotch Single Malt preferably, thanks) during my games if we are allowed, I do have more reservation about how much. I try to drink a lot water nowadays on and off the table and try to sleep 7-8 hours during the event and most importantly go into the event with zero to little sleep debt. When I “coach” newer tournament players, I try to educate them about tournament fatigue. The idea that there is no way you can play all of these games at max mental acuity and physical one as well especially when the game is so social; as in people aren’t just there to game, they want comradery, they want to share moments with new strangers/friends over our ridiculous game.
The way to deal with it is in 2 ways, at the table and off the table, at the table there is always the rule of have as much fun as you are afforded be it your own personal energy level and what is your opponent energy level but make sure you don’t tunnel on the bad things that happen and same for the good things, never lose focus on scoring points and don’t seek some personal vendetta on a unit you feel deserves to die, etc… Just have fun, score points and try to do it without having to kill things at the table. When you can do that effectively well, then you can start adding the new complexity to that and that is: How can you do that now and next turn with the decisions you are making now, and keep moving the time horizons as you get more comfortable with that. The off the table is really about people’s own preference but as I mentioned earlier that knowing what your limit is very important. While its important to win don’t forget to have fun, god I sound a like a lame Dad.

No! That’s great advice that I think many of us forget mid game. You must face many new players who have recognised your name on the tournament circuit, have you found that this recognition affects their game judgement? I guess what I’m trying to say is, do mind games come into it very often?

Yes, I had a few events where people recognize me and yes there is sometimes some self defeatism that happens at the table but I often remind my opponents especially the newer ones on how to go about either defeating a combo of mine or how to approach the game with of course as many mulligans as they want to take as long as we have not moved too far into the game. The issue is that some players either rise to the moment or fold perhaps because they don’t trust that I would give away pointers to my detriment or because they want to prove me wrong. I fully recognize its pretty condescending for someone to approach a table and offer up advice in a competitive environment as if they know that empowerment of their opponent is somehow not able to beat the cocky player. But the reality is that I play so many games where I am trying to coach people outside of events that I find that I just revert to that. I get a lot more value out of a game where my opponent grows in skill during the game as much as me facing a challenging new paradigm. Most folks forget that top players can suffer from impostor syndrome and my way of tackling it is by trying to maximize my opportunities into playing what I consider good or better players than I. I too want to become better than what I am today and elevating everyone’s game even mine is an important reason why I go to competitive events.

Regarding mind games, I do not try to engage into it too much but I know some folks I play regularly who joke that I own real estate in their mind. My type of mind games is maybe playing or designing armies which are maybe a bit off meta I guess. I do love the call out videos and the bit of jabbing that happens here stateside between the teams and players because its just good ol fun but I know some folks could consider them a form of mind game. I think the only mind games that end up affecting players is they one they give power to. I have seen it, folks who approach a game versus Bill Souza and just give up before the first roll happens and it breaks my heart. That player would have gotten so much more value from the game against Bill in growth and learning if he went about it with a winning attitude and heck people like me and Bill can lose. Queue: “If it bleeds, we can kill it”

If you could give advice to new tournament players what would it be?

Outside of making sure you give yourself the proper expectation how mentally tiring and how its hard to keep the same level of play after 5 games and a night out, my biggest advice to new players is to come to an event with achievable goals. Some players like a ratio of wins to losses but I prefer more of things related to the game such as: “Not dropping a Battle Tactic.” or “Sequencing combat activations correctly” or “Did I always make sure to pile in advantageously?”. I find that while everyone wants to go to events for games and the overall communal experience, its also nice to go for a more personal reason such as making sure you are getting some growth out of it. I personally attend tournaments to hope to play against certain players as a way to learn how to improve my game in those situations. Finally, tournaments are fun but you will always get what you put into them; meaning that if you choose to go there for just games, you will get that, if you go to improve your games, you will get that and if you go there to have fun, you will have fun and if you are transparent and obvious about those things, you will find that people will put the same energy into the game.

Jeremy, it’s been a pleasure speaking to you, thank you. All the best for the remainder of the season!